Utility Outages: Phone Number List Alerts

[sakibkhan22197]

The wind howled, and rain lashed against the windows. Inside, Maya was alone, reading a book. Suddenly, the lights flickered and died, plunging the room into darkness. "Great," she muttered, grabbing her phone. No signal.

She remembered the notice about signing up for outage alerts with a list of phone numbers. "Might as well," she thought. She fumbled for the landline, the only phone that worked without cell service. A recorded voice asked her to enter her account number and then prompted her to select numbers for alerts. She added her cell, her mom’s number, and her neighbor Mr. Peterson's number.

The next morning, the power was still out. Maya checked her phone again - still no signal. She glanced out the window. Mr. Peterson was outside, fiddling with something near the electrical box. Curious, Maya decided to check on him.

"Morning, Mr. Peterson," she called out, "Any luck? "

He looked up, startled. "Oh, Maya! Just checking the connection. Strange thing, though. I got a call last night about an outage at your place. Said to call this number if the power wasn't back on. " He held up a piece of paper with a phone number scribbled on it.

Maya frowned. "That's odd. I signed up for alerts, but I never got a call. "

Just then, her mom called from work. "Maya, honey, are you okay? I got a weird call lebanon phone number list last night saying there was an outage at your house and to call a specific number. "

A chill ran down Maya's spine. Why were other people getting calls about her outage, but not her? And why were they being told to call a specific number?

That number wasn't the utility company's number. She wrote it down. As she did, she remembered something else. Mr. Peterson had mentioned he was having trouble with someone hacking into his computer a few weeks prior.

Back inside, with a mix of fear and determination, Maya used Mr. Peterson's landline to call the number her mom had received. A man answered with a gruff, "Yeah? "

"I'm calling about the outage alert," Maya said, trying to keep her voice steady. "What company are you with? "

There was a pause. "Who is this? " the man asked, his voice hardening.

"My name is Maya. I'm trying to figure out why everyone else is getting outage alerts about my house, but I'm not. "

The line went dead. Maya stared at the phone, her mind racing. Someone was using the outage alert system for something, and it was definitely not to help people. And they knew her name.